It has been the general rule that various operations to be performed by a computer, such as a personal computer, a workstation or a portable information terminal, are assigned for the computer in response to commands entered at a UI. The printing setup for a printer is also performed through the manipulation of a UI provided by a printer driver. In addition, since very many entries are required to prepare a printing setup for a printer, usually the layout of the UI provided by a printer driver is so designed that associated entries are arranged and displayed by using tabs, thereby facilitating the preparation of a desired setup.
FIG. 4 is a diagram for explaining a conventional printer driver.
In FIG. 4, a printer driver 100 includes printer printing setup display means 150.
The operation of the printer driver 100 will now be described while referring to FIGS. 5 to 8. FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example printing setup screen for a printer; FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an example setup screen when a paper tab is selected; FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an example setup screen when a setup tab is selected; and FIG. 8 is a diagram showing an example setup screen when a print quality tab is selected.
When a printing available environment is set for a computer and the printer driver 100 displays the printer printing setup, printing setup entries 111 and initial printing setup contents 112, which together constitute the initial printing setup 110 designated using the UI, are regarded as a current printing setup 120, and current printing setup contents 122 that correspond to the printing setup entries 111 assigned for each tab are displayed by printing setup display means 150. When a user employs the UI to change the printing setup contents, the current printing setup 120, which includes the current printing setup contents 122, is updated, and the current printing setup contents 122, which correspond to the printing setup entries 111 assigned for each tab, are displayed by the printing setup display means 150.
In FIG. 5, corresponding printing setup entries for the printer are arranged in a page setup tab 301, a paper tab 302, a setup tab 303 and a print quality tab 304. Arranged in the page setup tab 301 are functions, selected from among all the setup entries, that are frequently employed, such as a paper size 305, a printing direction 306, a color/gray scale 307 and the number of pages 308 for each sheet.
As is shown in FIG. 6, when the paper tab 302 is selected, the number of copies 405 to be printed, the printing 406, for which the printing unit is the number of copies, and reverse order printing 407 can be set.
As is shown in FIG. 7, when the setup tab 303 is selected, enlarged/reduced printing 505 and enlarged continuous (poster) printing 506 can be set.
As is shown in FIG. 8, when the print quality tab 304 is selected, a color/gray scale 605 and a print quality 606 can be set.
As is described above, a conventional printer driver must display the screens in FIGS. 5 to 8 so that a user can perform a desired printing setup for a printer.
However, when the user desires to confirm the contents of the printing setup, the conventional printer driver must also be permitted to display the screens in FIGS. 5 to 8. Thus, in order to confirm the number of copies that has been set, the user must select the paper tab 302 to display the paper setup screen (FIG. 6), and must then confirm the entry for the number of copies 405. To confirm the enlarged/reduced printing that has been set, the user must select the setup tab 303 to display the setup screen (FIG. 7), and must then confirm the entry for the enlarged/reduced printing 505. And finally, to confirm the print quality that has been set, the user must select the print quality tab 304, to display the print quality setup screen (FIG. 8), and must then confirm the entry for the print quality 606. For this confirmation process, the user must display each screen to confirm the printing setup entries for the printer, and this a very tedious and troublesome procedure.
In order to efficiently confirm the contents of a printing setup prepared for a printer, it has been requested that a printer driver compare the initial printing setup for a printer and a current printing setup, and that a differential printing setup be displayed for which the entries are the ones in the initial and the current printing setups that differ.